Plus we’ll send those of you in the US and Canada a can of our incredible new product, Can O’ Smarts.

Can O’ Smarts may seem like an ordinary putty, or perhaps simply a toy. But in reality, it’s a tool that the modern marketer can’t live without.

The Magic of Using Your Smarts

I’ve had my Can O’ Smarts for about a week and I’ve come up with several uses for the putty that improve my daily marketing life.

Use One: Pen Holder

I use thin Sharpie pens for all of my writing. No matter how great my technology is, there is no greater feeling that physically crossing something off my to-do list. Have your pens handy and well-organized when you use your Can O’ Smarts as a pen holder!

Use Two: Stress Relief

Violence is never the answer, but when asked “What is the ROI of social media?” for the 400th time, everyone reaches their breaking point. I suggest wringing your Can O’ Smarts putty instead of wringing the neck of the senior executive in question.

Use Three: Bulletin Board

A perfect place to put your to-do list, Christmas list, grocery list…you get the idea.

Use Four: Nostalgic Breaks

We all remember using Silly Putty as children to pull images and text off newspapers. It’s the simple things that have the power to entertain and relax during your work day. Sad news is, I haven’t had my hands on a print newspaper in years. I tested my luck with a paper.li online paper, but the results were simply not the same.

Use Five: Clever Disguise

Sometimes you just have to get away. Maybe your client is asking you to make the logo even bigger? Or maybe your PPC campaign is a miserable failure? Whatever it is, your Can O’ Smarts can serve as the perfect disguise when you need to avoid your current situation. I think you’ll all agree, this putty moustache would trick nearly anyone!

So, don’t delay! Renew your PRO membership today for your very own Can O’ Smarts. We know you’ll think of tons of clever uses and hope you’ll be playing with it during PRO seminars and Take 10s in the future!

There’s still time to register for the MarketingProfs B2B Forum! If you are contemplating whether to stay home or go, I say go! There are many good reasons why, but let me supply the top 5 reasons why you should attend this year’s B2B Forum.

1. Great Content & Education

If you are in B2B marketing, this is a great place to get a good dose of education. From the workshops being taught on Monday by yours truly and one of the best in B2B Ardath Albee to the sessions throughout the show, you are going to get some great insights and practical take-aways from this event.

2.  Networking

I know at every show you hear about the “power of networking” but in today’s social age, it is more powerful and relevant than ever. The opportunity to network and share ideas as well as learn from peers is invaluable, and MarketingProfs does a fabulous job at providing these opportunities throughout the event.

3.  Access to Pros

One of the things I like the most about this show is the one-on-one “therapy sessions” that MarketingProfs arranges for attendees. These sessions are designed for folks who want insight and advice, and want to go deeper in their understanding and approach to the challenges they are facing within their organizations. If you have a specific challenge or issue you want to address, I highly recommend signing up for one of these sessions.

4.  The Diversity of Speakers

One of the many things I love about the way MarketingProfs has designed their conference is the mix of vendors, analysts, and end users they have as their speakers. This provides such a well-rounded view of the B2B landscape that you are bound to walk away with new perspectives and insights into the challenges you face daily.

5.  It’s Just Fun!

We all work extremely hard and, to be honest, at this conference, your brain will be in overdrive, but I can tell you that it will be fun. The conference is fast-paced and exciting, and has a buzz about it. Why should it be any different?  I have stated before that there is no better time to be a B2B marketer, and this conference embraces that.

I hope to see you in Boston in the coming days. If you were on the fence before, I hope this has helped you make your decision.  Go and register now!

I am a B2B marketer and, for some time, have felt compelled to write to all of you about the often discussed yet never solved marketing and sales alignment gap. In no way is the intent of my letter to cast aspersions upon you or point the finger for the gap that exists between us. This letter is meant to serve as an apology to all of you on behalf of all of us B2B marketers (and since I am writing on behalf of all B2B marketers, I will speak as the collective “we”).

We hope this letter is accepted with the sincerity in which it was written. We hope it can be the start of something transformational between marketing and sales. We truly believe that to adapt to the changing B2B buyer, we must work together in a collaborative fashion and that, in doing so, we will deliver incredible value to our customers and increase our companies’ revenue exponentially.

We know that we have a rocky past, but we are committed to a healthy future together. To get there, we vow that we will build our relationship in the future by doing the following:

We Will Listen

As marketers, we’re aware of our tendency to talk. We are full of good ideas, and we are aware of our ability to make things look pretty. We are also aware of our aptitude for pulling numbers and putting them in PowerPoint presentations to show how successful our marketing campaigns have been. However, we have also come to realize that we are really bad at listening. Sure, we know that every once in a while we send an email asking for sales input, but in reality, we haven’t given your responses  much consideration. Starting now, that will change. We will continually involve you in our work. We want to know what you need from marketing to be successful. We want to know what you mean when you use the word “lead” so that we can deliver quality ones to you. And not only will we listen, but we’ll translate that listening into action.

We Will Work With You to Deliver a Process-Based Lead-Management Approach

We know that in the past we have taken a very “top of the funnel” (i.e. lead generation) approach to our marketing. We know that when “leads” came into the funnel, all we did was dump them on you, so you could follow up and sell. We then went back to our PowerPoint presentations, so we could tell management about all the leads we generated.

But now, in listening to you, we have realized that what we generated were not really “leads.” They were more like “responses.” To correct this, we promise to develop, in collaboration with you, a lead-management approach so that you receive only the best quality leads. This process will ensure that all leads are managed through the buying process. By marketing this way, we hope to help you increase the conversion rates on the leads you will receive, which will ultimately increase your sales numbers.

In addition, as part of this process, we will work to ensure the integrity of our marketing and sales data. We will ask you to help us plan our quota (i.e. the amount of revenue for which marketing will be responsible, and the number of leads it will take to get there). We will ask you to help us build a lead-qualification framework. We will ask for your help in developing nurture strategies that help push deals through the pipeline in a more timely fashion. We need your help to build this lead-management framework effectively.

We Will Become Coin-Operated

We confess that when we are in our marketing meetings, we often talk about sales being “coin-operated” as if it’s some kind of disease.  We understand that coin-operated (i.e. having a revenue creation mindset) is a healthy way to look at our business. Please forgive us for the derision. Going forward, you can consider us coin-operated marketers. We will look at our marketing success in terms of the number of leads you accept from us and how many of those leads contribute to revenue. We will deliver reports that show the revenue we have helped create through our campaigns. We look forward to helping you create more revenue for our company. We will need your help in this area as we are not accustomed to working this way. As part of our commitment, we will make our marketers compensation tied to revenue, just like you. In doing so we will share the burden with you and be more aligned towards a common goal.

We Will Market by the Numbers

We will no longer market by activity-driven pressures. We will not attend events, send emails, buy online ads or run social campaigns simply because it is “what we have always done” or because “we have money in the budget to do so.” Instead, we will measure our campaigns based on their contribution to revenue. We will then continue to run those campaigns which contribute to revenue, and do away with those that do not. We will use business intelligence that we derive from both marketing and sales metrics to help us plan for the future. (We’ll need you to share your metrics with us.)

We Will Be Accountable and View You as Our Customer

We will no longer point the finger at sales, blaming you for “not getting it” or suggesting that more diligent follow up on leads by you will solve our problems. We will be open with you, sharing our failures. We will learn from them and seek to improve. We will also share our successes with you. Together, we’ll show management how we’ve created more revenue for our organizations. We won’t hide behind insignificant data such as “opens” and “clicks.” We’ll focus on numbers such as lead to sale conversions and marketing pipeline contribution.  Based on metrics from the past, we’ll commit to goals and objectives and do our best to meet them. You have a quota, and now, we’ll have one as well. We’ll ask you for continued feedback and input.

We hope you can see our earnestness in what we’ve written here, and that, together, we can begin anew. Our prospects and customers are tired of us bickering and pointing the finger at each other. They want us to deliver value, provide relevant content, and address their pressing needs. I’m confident we can do so together.

We look forward to a long lasting and fruitful relationship!

Sincerely,
B2B marketers everywhere

• Predictive Typing: As you type, a prediction is made of what you are seeking.
• Instant Results: As you type, the results appear. Every new character updates the search results instantly.

The end result that Google promises is 10% faster searches. Google states the average search takes 25 seconds — 9 to enter in the query, less than one for Google to process and display the results, and 15 seconds for the user to decide and select a link. So shaving off 2.5 seconds is considerably faster. Is it true? Try it out yourself and watch a live presentation of Google Instant in action.

Technically speaking, the predictive type and “instant results” aren’t new technologies. Bing and Yahoo both rolled out predictive type solutions to their search input field several months ago. Apple has had an instant results in its search results drop-down box, which it dubs “live search”. In other words, as you type, it produces “live” search results.

What is new, however, is the combination and scale of these technologies. Google has applied these technologies — predictive and live results — to the world’s information. In other words, you can scan billions of potential results instantly while you type. Rather than typing the full search term, hitting return, and waiting (however briefly), you now get results “instantly” updated as each new character is typed.

5 Ways How Google Instant Changes the Game for Search Marketers

There are several critical implications that need to be considered by search marketers.

1. Brevity is the soul of wit: Search engine users now have a reason to reduce their attention time even further — instant results as you type. Keep your copy brief, to the point, and able to grab their attention. If a searcher can’t scan and find what they are seeking, they are only one keystroke away from an entire new search results page of options.
2. Impression counts may increase: If results, both organic and sponsored, are updated and presented as the user types, what is considered an impression? Is an impression the milliseconds between typing words, or is it a pause greater than 1 second in typing, or is it a movement of the mouse? Google provides some guidance on this: 1) the person types a query into the search box and either presses the Enter key or clicks on the “Search” button (just like it has been historically); 2) the person starts to type their query, sees a results page displayed and clicks anywhere on that page (i.e. it registers an impression when the user selects a link from that page); and 3) the person stops typing and the results are displayed for three seconds or more, implying the searcher is scanning the results page. Regardless, we advise all search marketers to monitor their AdWords accounts closely in the next few weeks.
3. Your competition list just got longer: No longer is your competition the other websites that rank for your target or niche keyphrase term, like “tankless water heater“. Rather, it is also the shorter phrases, like “tankless” and “tankless water” that now also appear as the user types in their full search phrase. Each phrase presents a new layer of competition for you to now consider. In other words, your success with “long tail keywords” is now being challenged by the shorter tail keywords that precede it.
4. Predictive search = keyword research: Don’t know if you should focus your campaign on “steakhouse” vs. “steak houses” vs. “steak house”? Look to predictive search. The term that appears first is probably the most common search result, and the one you should consider targeting.
5. Real-time is the new fast: Web users will soon expect all websites to be as responsive as Google. In other words, a 2 second load time is probably 1.5 seconds too long. Your search strategy should include considerations for ongoing load-time and performance tests to ensure the page consistently loads in a snap.

What do you think of the new Google Instant results? How are you changing your search strategy to respond to this significant change?

David Felfoldi is the chief experience officer and founder of Sherpa! Web Studios, a search-friendly web design and development firm based in Atlanta, Georgia. His goal is to make the Web a better experience, including for people who write emails in all capital letters.

Greg’s book hasn’t arrived in my mailbox yet—curses for choosing Super Saver Shipping!—but I had a chance to chat with Greg about the book’s fundamentals recently.

AH: OK, so what are you talking about when you talk about “micromarketing”?

GV: We all know what mass marketing looks like—grand gestures, splashy creative and big budget media buys designed to reach and appeal to the widest possible audience. The problem? This type of marketing is less likely than ever to actually appeal to anyone at all. In large part, this is due to the splintering of mass culture into millions of niche microcultures, and the hyper-fragmentation of mass media into an infinite channel microcontent universe (in other words, that pesky social media thing).

In microMARKETING, my thesis is that in today’s environment businesses can achieve better results by tapping directly into these trends—or as I say, by “thinking and acting small”—than they can by bucking against them and pining for the good old days of Super Bowl spots and homepage takeovers.

AH: So when one door closes, another opens … as you say on your site (quoting Alexander Graham Bell).

GV: Right. In contrast to mass marketing, micromarketing emphasizes the use of small gestures (like one-on-one, person-to-person interactions), simple social media approaches and the amplification effect you get when the right people start spreading your messages and content throughout their social graphs.

AH: Can organizations of all sizes be micromarketers?

GV: Absolutely. In the book and in the presentation for Thursday’s seminar, I draw examples from big companies like Ford, Coke, Walmart and Samsung on the one hand. And microbrands (by which I mean small businesses and even individuals) like By Lauren Luke, #blamedrewscancer and author J.C. Hutchins on the other.

Because micromarketing is all about doing the right small things to get big results, it’s less about the size of your organization and more about your willingness to think differently and take new approaches.

AH: What else are you covering Thursday?

GV: In addition to giving attendees a peek at some of the key concepts from my book, the seminar will be packed with plenty of real world examples and actionable ideas that they can begin applying to their own businesses as soon as the session ends—it’s not all theory and it’s not just the same old stuff social media experts have been hammering on for the past three years.

As an added bonus, I have a beautiful speaking voice that makes for some mighty fine online listening.

* * * * *

To Greg’s last point:  It’s smooth as buttah. : ) See for yourself at Greg’s last presentations for us in the past here and here. (The latter gives an excellent tutorial on Second Life, if you happened to miss 2007 entirely.)

Hope to see you Thursday! Preregistration is not required, but you might want to save the date. Don’t miss this one! (Of course, you can always access it On Demand later, if you do. )

Note: This seminar is free for MarketingProfs Pro members.

• To engage directly with customers (or would-be customers)

• To communicate with personality, empathy and real emotion

• To create value

• And also: To have a little fun

It’s tempting to dismiss that last point, maybe. Who cares if your content is fun, right? Does fun make the cash register ring? And what if you’re a business-to-business company selling dead-serious stuff? Won’t it undermine your credibility, marginalize your message, and disrespect your products if you don’t approach your marketing with gravity?

In business, it’s tempting (and easier) to use the same boring words everyone else uses. But you’ll be far more approachable (and a whole lot more engaging) if you lighten up a little.

Approaching your content with a sense of fun and personality doesn’t mean you don’t sell something dead-serious, or even what some might consider boring. Consider marketing automation company Eloqua, for example.

Eloqua created The Conversation as an interactive sales tool for companies that want to make their online marketing more effective. This week, during a meeting with the team at Eloqua, I noticed the 2009 Groundswell award the company won for The Conversation’s funny, smart, engaging approach.

Similarly, this morning Hubspot released the first episode of its animated (cartoon) Web series, The Adventures of Captain Inbound, in which marketing superhero Captain Inbound defeats the Sultan of Spam. (And saves the day. Of course.) I particularly liked the cameo of David Meerman Scott’s “Great Oz”-inspired talking head. His counter-terrorism advice to combat the Sultan? “Create exceptional content that people will want to share, and point the world to your virtual doorstep.”

The takeaway for marketers is this: Creating content alone isn’t enough. The key is to create exceptional content that sets you apart from the crowd, drives viral sharing, and enhances your company’s profile and personality. Which, by the way, includes creating the unexpected, the unfamiliar, and occasionally the oddball and fun (or perhaps even the animated cartoon series!)

What’s your take? What compelling and surprising content have you seen? Share it below!

1. Interact with People

This may sound obvious, but it’s easy for B2B marketers to fall into the trap of simply tweeting thought leadership content and promotions. Content is important, to be sure, but the real benefit of Twitter is the ability to develop relationships. So interact with people, reply to their tweets, ask questions, and start building new relationships.

2. Don’t Tweet in a Silo

Depending on the structure of your sales and marketing department(s), you’ll want to keep tabs on who is a real prospect and who isn’t (yet). After all, you may look silly suggesting to a seemingly new lead that they check out your product or white paper when they’re already in the last stages of the buying process. However you do it, try to set up some form of communication between your sales and marketing team(s) so you: i) hand off good Twitter leads to sales ii) follow and engage with current prospects and iii) are aware of who is in the buying process and who isn’t.

3. Provide Value and Advice in Your Tweets

So you’re interacting with people and probably promoting your own thought leadership content. Fantastic! You’re off to a great start. Now it’s time to provide real value in your tweets and become a trusted advisor. So provide solutions. Offer advice. Help your followers solve their pain points. Say “A great way to increase ABC is by doing XYZ”.

4. Monitor Relevant Keywords

Monitoring keywords is a great (and easy!) way to find targeted people to follow, offer timely advice, and stay on top of industry trends. Let’s say you market dedicated server hosting. Make a list of relevant keywords that your prospects may use to describe their pain points, like “server downtime” or “network reliability”. You can use an RSS feed to receive a notification when someone tweets with those keywords, or you can use the built-in functionality with a tool like Tweetdeck. However you do it, you’ll be able to stay on top of what’s happening on Twitter, and swoop in when someone complains about their current solution’s reliability or downtime.

5. Monitor Your Competitors’ Brands

The great thing about Twitter is that everything is out in the open. You can easily see who is tweeting to your competitors and what they’re tweeting about. By monitoring your competitors’ products and brand names, you can: i) offer advice to a competitor’s customer who is having technical issues ii) engage with anyone who is considering a competitors’ product iii) follow anyone who tweets about a competitor iv) follow people that your competitors follow v) stay on top of trends in the industry vi) engage with the people your competitors tweet to. Just don’t do it all at once. That would be creepy and weird. And you don’t want them to call you out on it.

6. Offer Lead Gen Opportunities

Finally, offer direct lead generation opportunities. Tweet webinars, reports, white papers, and content. Just make sure you’re associating those lead capture pages with your Twitter marketing, so you can track the stellar ROI of your efforts.

Want to learn more about social media marketing for the high-tech industry? Join us October 26, 2010 in San Jose for SocialTech 2010 — the only conference that’s all about social media for B2B high-tech professionals.

On Tuesday, July 6, my company is putting on “the shortest marketing conference ever.” It’s called the Influencer Project, and it features new media luminaries like MarketingProfs’ own Ann Handley, Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, Gary Vaynerchuk, John Jantsch, Anne Holland, David Meerman Scott, Brian Clark, and many others—60 in total.

Inquiring minds have wanted to know how we got so many “influencers” on board. Well, it has something to do with the fact that each only has 60 seconds to speak. Let me explain.

As my team and I thought through what made our pitch “work,” and why so many “A-listers” agreed to participate, we came up with five not-so-obvious principles that you can start putting into practice immediately.

Without any further ado, here they are:

1. Create a “meme.” What’s a meme? In its simplest form, a meme is simply an idea that can spread from person to person. Whereas “genes” are passed on at the biological level, “memes” propagate on the cultural level. Okay—enough jargon. What does that actually mean?

I Can Has Cheezburger is a meme. Lady Gaga is a meme. Sh*t My Dad Says is a meme.

“A virtual marketing conference” is not a meme. “The shortest marketing conference ever” is. So “15 hour-long webinars“ is not a meme, but “60 talks in 60 minutes” is. That’s not to say that general marketing conferences aren’t great, important, and incredibly valuable. But they’re not necessarily memes.

A meme takes a simple convention (marketing conferences; teen pop stars; sage advice) and turns it on its head (“shortest marketing conference ever”; the most outrageous and over-the-top teen pop star in history; ridiculous, profane, and hilarious sage advice) in a way that’s surprising, eye-catching, and even remarkable (“60 in-demand leaders speaking for 60 seconds each”; theatrics and imagery that’s uniquely, err, creative and boundary-pushing; hilarity delivered in 140 characters).

• So: are you creating a meme, or more of the same?

2. Offer disarmingly low barriers to entry (and, ideally, make it fun). If you think you have a meme that will excite people—all celebrities are human, and get excited by the exact same things we do, after all—but it requires tremendous effort (and you don’t have tremendous money to pay for their time, or a massive social cause to champion), then, sir or madam, good luck.

If I had asked each speaker to talk for one hour about [insert generalized topic here], I would have surely gotten turned down by many, if not most, of the speakers. But all I asked for was 60 seconds. That’s not just disarmingly simple to cognize—it also presents a fun and intriguing challenge.

• So: how big are your barriers to entry? Are the “asks” you’re making eye-rolling, or thrilling?

3. Construct a collective ethos. 60 speakers is a project. It’s not “me” speaking at “some thing”—it’s all of us doing something together. TED represents 1,000 leaders coming together to explore the edge of what’s next—and millions of people watching the videos afterward. It unites people, and it’s about our future.

None of us, deep down inside, wants to be a lone ranger. Celebrities and thought leaders have strong individual presences—but who, honestly, wants to walk the path alone? When you build a forum for many people to share ideas that matter, you release an energy that’s unparalleled. MarketingProfs does this beautifully: everyone is blogging, chatting, and working together—not alone.

• So: is the meme you’re creating making influencers feel part of something, or all on their own?

4. Make your language repeatable and surprising, but meaningful. It’s really, really easy to come up with a generalized description of virtually anything. But that won’t light people up. We like things we can repeat, that roll off our tongues with ease.

“60 speakers in 60 minutes.” “60-in-60.” In this case, I used numerical repetition to make the language “stick.” Now, and here’s the rub, there’s also significance behind the numbers: they represent the fact that many leading thinkers and doers—a surprising 60—will all be sharing something remarkable in 60 seconds each.

“Purple Cow” is both surprising and repeatable—but it represents an idea that can transform your business. “The Art of the Start” also has an incredibly rhythmic quality, but it’s coming from one of the most respected startup advisers in the country.

• So: is your language repeatable, surprising, and meaningful—or are you either too bland or going for shock value without offering meaning?

5. Write the right letter. There’s an interesting phenomenon that can occur when we reach out to the influencers: we either err on the side of long-winded, involved, overly deferential (two-page letters describing our event in painstaking detail and why it would be our deepest honor to have the person involved), or communicating beyond our pay grade (“Hey bro, you down to do an interview tomorrow?” Unless, of course, it is your brother.).

What we’re shooting for is the line right down the middle. That means writing brief and collegial emails (none of ours were longer than 12 sentences), but still informative (none were less than 6 sentences, and all included the most important details).

• So: are you writing friendly, informative, and succinct invitations—or are you erring on either too stiff and long-winded or too short and “buddy buddy”?

There you have it: 5 principles that can get the web celebs on board and increase your brand visibility online. Spark any ideas for your own brand?

——————————————

Sam Rosen is the CEO of ThoughtLead in Lenox, Massachusetts, organizer of the Influencer Project.

Featuring our own Roy Young with a panel of four B2B marketers (including Dave Thomas from SAS, ExactTarget’s Joel Book, Kipp Bodnar from Hubspot, and Carlos Hidalgo, from the Annuitas Group), Shift Your B2B Marketing into High Gear: Lead Management, Social Media & Integration will share expert advice on how to turn more leads into customers.

You’ll hear about the latest techniques in lead management and how to integrate social media into your marketing programs to strengthen lead generation and develop closer customer relationships. In other words, you’ll be a realistic picture of what B2B marketers need to do now to drive more sales.

Specifically, you’ll learn:

* How to integrate social prospecting into lead gen strategies including webcasts, events and email drip campaigns;
* Ways to use email—in combination with CRM and social media—to acquire, retain, and expand customer relationships;
* How lead nurturing affects the other areas of lead management including lead planning, lead routing, lead qualification and measurement; and
* the benefits of having a more formalized set of social media recommendations for employees.

What B2B marketer can afford to miss this? Especially at that price?

Register here.

BONUS! At the end of the live broadcast, we’re going to randomly choose one lucky viewer to get a free registration to our B2B Forum in Boston — a $1,295 value. You must be present at the end of the seminar to win.

We recently had a discussion with Bob to ask him a few questions about making websites work. Here are some great tips that came out of our discussion:

MP: What kind of website content do people really like?

BK: People tend to enjoy content that fills some personal need. We all respect those with expert opinion and we search for solid facts, but the stuff that sticks with us, motivates us and inspires us are the things that reach out and feel personal. Your content can’t be for everyone, but as long as your writing or speaking to the heart of someone’s need, then your content will be better received.

MP: Bob, you talk about created a site that “focuses on the user’s needs.” Why do so many companies struggle with this type of “outside-in” thinking? Are the majority of companies still using their websites as online brochures? How can they break out of the habit?

BK: I’ve heard a lot of people over the years bash the “brochure” web site, but I really see no reason to. Companies need brochures. The problem is too many companies stop at the web site as their sole online strategy. I think it’s important to have the facts for research and investigation, but then focus on how best to engage prospects and customers. If your customers need a forum, then add that. If they are searching for more personal content, start a blog from there. If all they want to do is tweet, be on Twitter. I think the biggest thing is to look at how your customers are already engaging online and then meet them halfway with content that fulfills their needs.

MP: What if customers aren’t social? I suppose that a ‘brochure’ website would do the job, but I just wonder about keeping up with customers when the website is stagnant for years.

BK: This word “social” is a buzz word that’s dual edged. We think it means the customer has to be online and participating. But social is really just about listening and responding in a relational way, no matter what the media. Long and short is, if your customer’s aren’t online, you need less focus there. But clearly, if your website hasn’t been updated in years, folks, it’s time to at least do a simple refresh.

MP: What advice do you have for folks doing win-back campaigns. How do you re-establish yourself as the expert even though they walked away in the first place?

BK: I know this strategist who always calls win-back campaigns “Why have you forsaken us?” I like it because it gets to the heart of a win-back strategy. It’s first and foremost about listening and learning. We want to know where we lost out first and then create content to solve the need. Sales people call it pain selling. We find the pain and then we solve the pain and then we become the expert.

The trouble with most content strategies is that content is traditionally pushed and not a response. It’s important to rethink that and always be delivering what targets the needs best. I realize it’s impossible to get granular and personal with every customer, but sometimes we don’t need to. As long as we are publicly getting personal with as many as we can, we showcase our concern for the aspects of our business that matter most to the customer.

MP: What’s the biggest challenge marketers have when it comes to producing compelling content to attract/retain customers?

BK: They want to sell more than they want to entertain. As compelling as people say my content can be, my focus is at least 80% on making the experience enjoyable for those consuming it. The driest subject matter can be entertaining in the right hands.

I always trot out this scenario, so I’ll do it again. The customer in a B2B campaign is fact driven. They assess facts, then they narrow down to who provides the best solution. They weigh all the options again to see if they can narrow down further…then they choose the company with the salesperson they like best.

We need to never forget that as rational as B2B selling can be, the decision is usually an emotional one in the end. The better we make customers feel about us along the selling path, the better chance we have of closing the deal in that final hour.

Want to learn more about how to get people coming back to your website? Join us and Bob Knorpp the MarketingProfs B2B Forum.

Swenson predicts:

• Look for brands to develop programs that engage consumers instead of simply cutting a check or asking for donations.
• With more marketing dollars supporting cause programs, you can also expect to see a link between a brand’s loyalty marketing programs and its cause programs.
• The third integrated trend to watch will be more multilevel deals between nonprofits, brands and media properties.
• In order for charities to truly benefit, brands must treat their cause programs with the same level of business acumen they do their other marketing outreaches. If more brands take that philosophy to heart, then we will see an even larger growth pattern for cause in 2010.

Read “The Most Influential Cause Marketing Campaigns of All Time” from David Hessekiel, founder and president of the Cause Marketing Forum.

Now, your turn. What cause marketing campaign is your company (or nonprofit) planning for 2010? What do you see as its benefits for both the business and nonprofit sectors?

Paul Volcker, chairman of U.S President Barack Obama’s Economic Advisory Board recently said, “(The United States) needs to do a better job at the new industries coming along, the so called green economy.” However, an article from the New Yorker titled “Green Giant” suggests that China has invested in green technologies for decades and already has a significant head start.

Why China and green technologies? Call it a matter of survival. As factory to the world, China is now responsible for a larger carbon footprint than even the United States. And while links between carbon emissions and global warming are debatable, Chinese leaders haven’t taken any chances investing in technologies that are more environmentally friendly such as wind and solar. Moreover, its export heavy led economy needs energy to sustain itself, so renewable energy is definitely a national security imperative.

Strategic planning is often about seeing significant trends on the horizon, making big (and wise) bets and laying the foundation for future dominance. To this point, according to the New Yorker article, as far back as 1986 Chinese leaders saw the beginnings of a “new technological revolution” and started building green capabilities and setting targets for heat and wind turbines, solar panels and hydro-electric dams.

Indeed years of heavy investment have paid off in that China now manufactures “more solar cells than any other country” and has doubled its wind capacity for three years running (2006-2008).

It’s tempting to dismiss the prowess?and progress of China with a vision of cheap goods, backwards factories, inefficient processes and thousands of workers in assembly lines producing with ancient technologies. Yet, in many cases Chinese factories are just as productive, clean, and advanced as Western enterprises, and in some instances the only place a product can be made cost effectively is in China!

There is a sliver of good news, however for Western companies. While the New Yorker article cites China’s ability to scale and mass produce green technologies, much of the innovation and science behind the scenes still comes from the West.

One can only wonder, however, how long this lead in innovation will hold, especially as R&D expenditures, “have grown faster in China than other big country?climbing about 20% per year for two decades to $70B last year.”

Perhaps there’s a future in collaboration between Western countries and China. “Chinese manufacturing and American innovation is powerful,” says Kevin Czinger, a former Goldman Sachs executive. Mr. Czinger calls it the “Apple model” where innovation and know-how is born in the West and execution resides in Asia.

On the other hand, with a just small portion of the overall “value” of a product staying in China, it seems unlikely that China will be content as simply the muscular strength powering the world economy.
Questions:

• Marketers; dominance of green markets isn’t just limited to green energy. Green design, building, packaging, chemistry, and nanotechnologies are also in play. Which areas hold the most promise for Western companies?
• With unemployment levels nearing 12-17% in some US states and cities, the green industry is often seen as a potential panacea. Are Western countries in danger of losing green jobs to developing countries? If so, what’s the remedy?
• How does “green technology” fit in the future of your company?

…develop engagement solutions that create behavior change…educate and engage audiences with meaningful information…conceive new integrated marketing strategies and create closed loop measurement opportunities…unique thought leadership…” You know the drill. Clouds of jargon words.
Now the offering is actually quite interesting, but the key message was obscured by all the officious tech terms.

When writing marketing copy, it’s always a temptation to assume that the target audience: 1) knows everything you know; and 2) can absorb a whole bunch more. That’s not the case. Make it your goal to express one critical point very well, within the first 10 seconds. Because nobody is going to want to work hard to figure out what you do.

How to accomplish this? Simple – run your preliminary copy and messages by an “unbaptized” set of reviewers. Have some smart unofficial advisors look things over who are not in your company, maybe not even in the field – just to see if your message comes through. Your spouse. Your mother. A trusted friend from college. If you’ve distilled your message down to simple clarity, even the uninitiated will grasp the key point.

You only have a few seconds to earn attention. Don’t waste that precious time sending up fog and leaving people wondering what you’re talking about!

Alicia Staley, a three-time cancer survivor, has embraced social media and has reaped solid returns as a result. She uses her personal brand as a tool for increasing attention for the Foundation. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the Conduit platform have all given her the opportunity to forge better connections with key stakeholders. Here are some examples:
Facebook: Staley uses Facebook to proactively communicate with her fans and donors. She posts messages about Foundation meetings, news and events. She is also planning to use the new Cause application on Facebook to run a fundraiser this summer. Her page offers an opportunity to connect with supporters, donors and would be donors en masse with time as her only investment.
Twitter: Staley is the brand on Twitter. Many business organizations have corporate handles. However, in the world of non-profits, a more personal and direct presence is required. As the director of The Staley Foundation, Staley (@stales) has a personal story that resonates with donors and potential donors. As a result, her Twitter handle supports relationships with key constituents. Staley is committed to keeping her Twitter presence personal and engaging, especially since it has been so fruitful. She hosted two major fundraising efforts on Twitter, raising $2,000 with the first, and $3,400 during the second. Both of those efforts were promoted purely through Twitter.
Linkedin: Linkedin offers a wealth of information on fund-raising topics. Staley leverages Linkedin Answers to ask questions about by-laws, creating effective boards, managing committees for all aspects of non-profit management. Peers answer the questions, offering valuable insight that can be implemented for the Foundation. This virtual peer group keeps Staley connected to other leaders in the non-profit world. Staley’s profile and activity on Linkedin also allow others to find her and the Foundation and help her spread the word to potential donors.
The Staley Foundation has the same problems many non-profits have encountered: retaining first-time visitors and one-time donors. To combat this, Staley uses a browser-based add-on called a conduit, which provides a persistent, constant interface with her community in the browser window. Staley is hopeful that the conduit will help to keep the Foundation top of mind with donors so she can further ignite fundraising efforts. Moreover, she is enrolled in the Conduit Gives program, which presents an entirely new fundraising channel.
As part of the Conduit Gives program, non-profits, such as The Staley Foundation, that leverage the Conduit Platform can now also offer their members the official Conduit Gives button. Every time a user clicks the button, Conduit will make a donation to the non-profit. Users may participate up to once a day, every day throughout 2010. Just by being involved and thinking about their organization each day, every person can make a big difference without making a donation. In total, the Conduit Gives program will provide 100 non-profit organizations the opportunity to earn more than $300,000 a month and $3.6 million in funds in 2010.
—————————————————————————-
Adam Boyden is President of Conduit, which operates the Conduit Gives program.

Just the other day, my friend Mary McKnight and I were discussing the matter and both agreed restaurants, bars and such other consumer-centric local businesses are obvious choices for use of the medium. (From our joint perspective as marketing consultants, we also agreed they were “low hanging fruit” too — obvious prospects for our services.)

Take, for example, what’s happened with Naked Pizza down in New Orleans. Their entire approach to marketing has been revamped to include social media, especially Twitter. So novel was it, the restaurant garnered coverage in the New York Times as well as investment from Mark Cuban.
The same can be said for Ramon DeLeon, owner of several Domino’s Pizza restaurants in Chicago. He has mastered the art of using social media to sell his products and created a very loyal following in the process. In fact, his popularity has taken on almost Gary Vaynerchukesque proportions.
Recently, I noticed a number of articles and blog posts on the topic of restaurants using social media. Here are a few:

• Where fine dining and social media meet – SmartBrief on Social Media
• Take a Tip from Restaurants on Email Marketing & Social Media – Vertical Response blog
• Atlanta Restaurants Band Together on Niche Social Media Site – 11Alive.com

A year ago I asked the question on Twitter, “If I were a restaurant, I’d use Twitter to…” and received a number of responses ranging from, “I would tweet my lunch specials at lunch time; tweet whether there’s a wait; tweet my best desert of the day” to “ask customers to submit their best homemade recipes and hold a contest, the winner gets dish on the menu 4 a yr & named after them.”
Truly, Facebook Pages and Twitter accounts were made in the shade for restaurants. I can’t think of one good reason why every such establishment shouldn’t have both.
In fact, even though I work as Internet marketing director for a Web design and development company, I once told a client who came to us for consulting on social media marketing that they didn’t need a Web site, and that a Facebook Page would suffice. (And, no, that advise didn’t get me fired.)
In this particular case, the restaurant in question was a lunch counter in an office building, not a full-service establishment. A Web site would have been overkill. (For the record, I do believe every full-service restaurant should have a Web site.)
I’d really like to hear from restaurant owners and patrons alike. If you’re a restaurateur, how are you currently using social media? If a patron (and aren’t we all), how do you see social media being a good fit, and in what ways would you encourage its use? Also, please feel free to share links to any restaurant, bar, etc., that’s using social media for marketing purposes and tell me what you think of their use of it.
(NOTE: This is the latest in a series I started last year entitled Social Media Works for Small Business. I Have Proof. See previous entries here, here and here.)

As one of the few countries in the world showing positive economic growth, the future of China sure looks promising. And to take advantage of a very large marketplace, Western companies like Pfizer, Astra Zeneca, Goodyear and others have established beachheads in Chinese markets. However, an Economist article titled, “Impenetrable” reminds readers how truly difficult it is to sell foreign goods in China.
To be sure, some companies are thriving in China. The Economist article cites luxury good makers, airplane manufacturers, and commodity producers as successfully penetrating China. Yet, for every success story, there are a dozen works in progress especially in fields such as pharmaceuticals, banking and insurance and telecommunications. In fact, Ronald Schramm, a professor at the Chinese European International Business School says that the impact of Western firms’ total sales in China are little more than a rounding error.
Why all the difficulty? Western firms must deal with the fact that for all the excitement of capitalistic economic zones in China, most of the enterprises in China are state owned. That means Western companies must deal with plenty of costly and unending red tape from protective Chinese authorities. And while China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, there is much work to be done to level the playing field for Western companies to effectively compete.
Yet, all hope is not lost. Digging a bit deeper for strategies to penetrate and prosper in Chinese markets, I interviewed Globe Trade founder, Laurel Delaney. Ms. Delaney argues that companies doing business in China need to change their mindset and think of China as an investment that will pay off over the long run. She says, “It takes tremendous time, incredible patience and phenomenal preparation to do business in China. Many companies just don’t have the stamina, perseverance or dollars to last — yet, if they hang on and keep working on it, they will eventually find success.”
The path to successfully navigating Chinese markets also involves avoiding the biggest blunders. To that point, Ms. Delaney mentions the number one mistake a Western marketer can make when looking to China for growth is attempting to go it alone. “You need a strong and effective team and good “Guangxi” (relationship) when doing business in China,” she says. “The stronger the team you assemble breaking out of the gate — the greater your likelihood of success in developing business in China.”
Ms. Delaney also mentions the types of local talent, needed “on the ground” to propel success. First, she says, Western companies should set up a peer-to-peer advisory board consisting of legal talent, an individual with M&A knowledge, a transportation and logistics “superstar”, a banker and a governmental contact. It’s these people that can help a Western marketer iron out issues and challenges they’ll likely face.
In addition, outside of setting up a joint venture with a company, consider hiring local talent to help market to Chinese consumers. According to Ms. Delaney, someone on your marketing team, “(needs to know) native tongue languages of China, is smart and masterful at communicating which includes marketing/advertising, has experience with your product or service offering, and has a history of proven success.”
China is an economic giant and is poised?eventually?to be the number one economy in the world. For Western marketers, finding ways to get your products and services into China is definitely worth strong consideration. Success in Chinese markets won’t come easy, and it won’t be cheap. China’s markets hold great promise, but also peril for companies that lack determination and endurance for the long-run.
Questions:

• A Business Week article notes that in many instances the Chinese government has of late, “strengthened its grip on the economy.” Is there any hope for Western companies to sell their wares against state owned companies?
• Green industries are often cited by futurists as an area where the United States and other Western nations can create competitive advantage. And yet, currently, 35% of the world’s solar cells are made in China. Will the next Green revolution take place in China?
• Beijing University professor Michael Pettis says, “There is little real innovation or branding ability in China.” Does this provocative sentence scream “opportunity” for Western marketers and their associated products/services?

As one of the few countries in the world showing positive economic growth, the future of China sure looks promising. And to take advantage of a very large marketplace, Western companies like Pfizer, Astra Zeneca, Goodyear and others have established beachheads in Chinese markets. However, an Economist article titled, “Impenetrable” reminds readers how truly difficult it is to sell foreign goods in China.
To be sure, some companies are thriving in China. The Economist article cites luxury good makers, airplane manufacturers, and commodity producers as successfully penetrating China. Yet, for every success story, there are a dozen works in progress especially in fields such as pharmaceuticals, banking and insurance and telecommunications. In fact, Ronald Schramm, a professor at the Chinese European International Business School says that the impact of Western firms’ total sales in China are little more than a rounding error.
Why all the difficulty? Western firms must deal with the fact that for all the excitement of capitalistic economic zones in China, most of the enterprises in China are state owned. That means Western companies must deal with plenty of costly and unending red tape from protective Chinese authorities. And while China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, there is much work to be done to level the playing field for Western companies to effectively compete.
Yet, all hope is not lost. Digging a bit deeper for strategies to penetrate and prosper in Chinese markets, I interviewed Globe Trade founder, Laurel Delaney. Ms. Delaney argues that companies doing business in China need to change their mindset and think of China as an investment that will pay off over the long run. She says, “It takes tremendous time, incredible patience and phenomenal preparation to do business in China. Many companies just don’t have the stamina, perseverance or dollars to last — yet, if they hang on and keep working on it, they will eventually find success.”
The path to successfully navigating Chinese markets also involves avoiding the biggest blunders. To that point, Ms. Delaney mentions the number one mistake a Western marketer can make when looking to China for growth is attempting to go it alone. “You need a strong and effective team and good “Guangxi” (relationship) when doing business in China,” she says. “The stronger the team you assemble breaking out of the gate — the greater your likelihood of success in developing business in China.”
Ms. Delaney also mentions the types of local talent, needed “on the ground” to propel success. First, she says, Western companies should set up a peer-to-peer advisory board consisting of legal talent, an individual with M&A knowledge, a transportation and logistics “superstar”, a banker and a governmental contact. It’s these people that can help a Western marketer iron out issues and challenges they’ll likely face.
In addition, outside of setting up a joint venture with a company, consider hiring local talent to help market to Chinese consumers. According to Ms. Delaney, someone on your marketing team, “(needs to know) native tongue languages of China, is smart and masterful at communicating which includes marketing/advertising, has experience with your product or service offering, and has a history of proven success.”
China is an economic giant and is poised?eventually?to be the number one economy in the world. For Western marketers, finding ways to get your products and services into China is definitely worth strong consideration. Success in Chinese markets won’t come easy, and it won’t be cheap. China’s markets hold great promise, but also peril for companies that lack determination and endurance for the long-run.
Questions:

• A Business Week article notes that in many instances the Chinese government has of late, “strengthened its grip on the economy.” Is there any hope for Western companies to sell their wares against state owned companies?
• Green industries are often cited by futurists as an area where the United States and other Western nations can create competitive advantage. And yet, currently, 35% of the world’s solar cells are made in China. Will the next Green revolution take place in China?
• Beijing University professor Michael Pettis says, “There is little real innovation or branding ability in China.” Does this provocative sentence scream “opportunity” for Western marketers and their associated products/services?

“As part of a partnership with the TV show “The Apprentice,” GM launched a contest last month to promote the Chevy Tahoe SUV. The contest challenges viewers to create their own digital commercial about the SUV at Chevyapprentice.com. Entrants must choose from a range of video clips and sound tracks and write their own text to create their ad.”
In this case, along with videos that were submitted for the contest, there were also plenty of videos made on everything that was wrong with the Tahoe. And it wasn’t just video, it was commentary that went viral as well. On top of that GM was then chastised for not responding quickly enough (details can be found in the cnet article).
Here’s one example that I found all these years later:

The site is gone (chevyapprentice.com), but the videos and articles still live on…
“Content Nation Marketing Rule #10: If you want to ask for a conversation about your brand in social media, you have to be ready to hear what you may not want to hear.”
Personally, I think GM was ahead of it’s time with this contest and it was probably a good risk that they took because only a fraction of the ads ended up being negative. As a marketer, are you prepared for engaging in social media and perhaps finding out what your customers (or other parties) may truly think of your company or brands?

Brainstorming is a “quality input = quality output” event. If you’ve got a group truly willing to stretch their brains to generate new ideas you will generate bigger and better ideas.

How To Be A Great Participant

Below are a few tips to help you be a “quality input” kinda person at your next brainstorming.
Just like any meeting, unless you have something to contribute you probably shouldn’t attend. A former boss used to say, “The price of admission is participation.”
(1) Get Enough Sleep
It’s amazing how much better our minds and bodies work when properly recharged with sleep.
Do your best to get a solid 8-hours of sleep the night before a brainstorming session. You’ll feel much better and will have more stamina for the day’s work.
(2) Arrive Prepared
Do yourself and the group the favor of arriving prepared. Read the agenda and understand the objective of the day. If there isn’t an agenda or a clear goal specified, ask the meeting leader for the information. If there isn’t a clear objective, I would consider declining the meeting invitation… More than likely this meeting – like any meeting without an objective – will be a waste of your and the rest of the participants time.
(3) Suspend Reality
This is one of the most difficult thing for adults to do – use and stretch our imagination. We are so accustomed to self-filtering thoughts, to be efficient we immediately edit out ideas that:

• we have tried before,

• that sound crazy,
• that don’t fit the process, or,
• that we know are not practical with today’s systems, etc.

Instead, forget what “can’t be done” or “is not possible.” Suspend reality, and make believe anything is possible. Not only will this help create more, better ideas, but it is fun!
(4) Don’t Be Afraid | Be Confident In Your Ideas
One reason more ideas aren’t suggested during brainstorm sessions is because we are afraid of sounding stupid in front of, and being ridiculed by, our peers.??A good facilitator should address this at the start of a meeting, and put the team at ease…
I know this can be a challenge. We’re not in high school anymore, nevertheless meetings feel like home room in high school. We get all worried how we appear to our classmates… er… co-workers.
(5) Build, Don’t Block
One of the primary rules of improvisation is to not block the story. When someone starts an improv scene the other participants are to go with that flow. Say “Yes! And…” and keep building. The same rule applies to brainstorming.
If you don’t like someone’s idea, so what? Instead of shooting it down, build it up. Say: “Yes… and…” add something more to the idea. Make it better, bigger, crazier, bolder, faster… anything but kill it.??Brainstorming isn’t decision making. There are plenty of future opportunities for a truly bad idea to find its demise.
(6) Snack Right?
Meeting planners are famous for providing sugary treats to entice people to attend brainstormings, and to keep them fueled during the meeting.
The last brainstorming I attended served Skittles, M&Ms, Red Vines, mini-Snicker bars, and an assortment of sugar-based sodas. The thinking was, ‘the sugar will help keep us energized.’
Sugar works for about 20 minutes, the we crash even harder than if we had no sugar at all.
Start with a good breakfast. (A latte and a scone isn’t the right mix). Try to get protein and carbs. During the day, for snacks, instead of sugary stuff, bring your own unsalted almonds, toasted pumpkin seeds, and fresh fruit. Don’t eat too heavily at lunch.
This is literally your food for thought.
(7) Don’t Get Hung Up
Once in a while, an idea will come up that the group gets stuck on. Perhaps you even start critiquing or refining.??Brainstorming isn’t the time to judge or filter. If it seems you’re spending too much time on one idea or there is an issue with an idea, have the meeting leader write it down in a visible place to come back to at a later time, and move on.
(8) Stand & Stretch
Get up and walk around now and then. Stretch. It almost seems ideas get stuck in the folds of our lap – like a bend in a garden hose. Standing up lets them flow.
(9) Provide Feedback
Be sure to provide the leader of the meeting with constructive feedback.??Let them know if the meeting went well, what you liked, and perhaps suggestions that may help them in the future. If your feedback is very negative – talk with them face-to-face. An email isn’t the right vehicle for that type of critical information.??Finally, you may find your brain still churning ideas a day or two after the brainstorming. Be sure to send your additional thoughts to the meeting lead to add to the collection of ideas.
So there you have it, nine tips to make you an expert brainstormer. Do you have any others you’ve used at your company? If so, please share. If you try some of the ideas listed, please let me know how it went for you.

But I would argue having worked on several social media strategies now that this approach no longer holds.
The problem is the (P) in the POST method.
It dawned on me when the CMO of Avaya asked me to show her how we would reach certain audiences, like pospects and business partners etc., with our Social Media efforts. it was hard to find a “pure” grouping of these out on the socialsphere. What you typically find is a “Conversation” and in that conversation you have a few prospects, maybe an existing customer, a business partner, a few employees and even a competitor or two.
The goal of your social media strategy is not to find the P for People it’s to find the C for Conversations!
If you can effectively listen and monitor to find the conversations where the people are talking about topics you want to participate in then you are 90% of the way to a successful social media strategy. And if you play your cards right to generating leads with your social media strategy.
But that would infer that the POST Method should really be the COST Method for creating a Social Media strategy and that just doesn’t sound very good!
What do you think of POST vs. COST?

It seems the world’s most-recognized brand has done something of note again. In a short article published in Greener Package newsletter, comes this announcement: “Coca-Cola Unveils Plant-Based Bottle.”
The gist: Coca-Cola has debuted its new PlantBottle? made through a proprietary process that turns sugar cane and molasses into one of the components for its PET plastic bottles. The company is also researching other plant materials that might be used in future editions of the PlantBottle?. Since PET plastic bottles are made from petroleum, and Coke’s new packaging is made from a combination of traditional petroleum-based PET and up to 30% plant-based materials, this represents a real breakthrough.
To wit:
? Manufacturing the new bottle is more environmentally efficient. Carbon emissions are reduced by up to 25%, as confirmed by third party analysis conducted by the Imperial College of London.
? The PlantBottle? can be manufactured and recycled without contaminating the customary PET.
? The material in the PlantBottle? can be used, recycled and reused over and over.
? The new packaging material cuts down on petroleum, a non-renewable resource, substantially.
Coca-Cola spokesman Muhtar Kent: “It builds on our legacy of environmental ingenuity and sets the course for us to realize our vision to eventually introduce bottles made with materials that are 100 percent recyclable and renewable.” Scott Vitters, director of Sustainable Packaging for Coca-Cola: “This innovation is a real win because it moves us closer to our vision of zero waste with a material that lessens our carbon footprint and is also recyclable.”
Coke plans on introducing the PlantBottle? packaging later this year for its Dasani and sparkling brands; and its VitaminWater in 2010. New messaging will accompany the roll-out of the new bottles on the packaging itself, on point of sale retail displays and company web sites.
Questions:
? Would you as a consumer be more likely to purchase a Coca-Cola beverage brand packaged in the PlantBottle? just because it’s more sustainable? Even if it means ceasing to buy another brand you currently prefer?
? When buying foods, beverages and other consumer products, does greener packaging factor into your purchase decision?
? If you don’t currently, would you purchase products in more sustainable packaging if manufacturers communicated about it better? Where would you prefer to learn about green options?on the packaging itself? On company branded web sites? In store? All of the above?
I’d love to hear from you.

It seems the world’s most-recognized brand has done something of note again. In a short article published in Greener Package newsletter, comes this announcement: “Coca-Cola Unveils Plant-Based Bottle.”
The gist: Coca-Cola has debuted its new PlantBottle? made through a proprietary process that turns sugar cane and molasses into one of the components for its PET plastic bottles. The company is also researching other plant materials that might be used in future editions of the PlantBottle?. Since PET plastic bottles are made from petroleum, and Coke’s new packaging is made from a combination of traditional petroleum-based PET and up to 30% plant-based materials, this represents a real breakthrough.
To wit:
? Manufacturing the new bottle is more environmentally efficient. Carbon emissions are reduced by up to 25%, as confirmed by third party analysis conducted by the Imperial College of London.
? The PlantBottle? can be manufactured and recycled without contaminating the customary PET.
? The material in the PlantBottle? can be used, recycled and reused over and over.
? The new packaging material cuts down on petroleum, a non-renewable resource, substantially.
Coca-Cola spokesman Muhtar Kent: “It builds on our legacy of environmental ingenuity and sets the course for us to realize our vision to eventually introduce bottles made with materials that are 100 percent recyclable and renewable.” Scott Vitters, director of Sustainable Packaging for Coca-Cola: “This innovation is a real win because it moves us closer to our vision of zero waste with a material that lessens our carbon footprint and is also recyclable.”
Coke plans on introducing the PlantBottle? packaging later this year for its Dasani and sparkling brands; and its VitaminWater in 2010. New messaging will accompany the roll-out of the new bottles on the packaging itself, on point of sale retail displays and company web sites.
Questions:
? Would you as a consumer be more likely to purchase a Coca-Cola beverage brand packaged in the PlantBottle? just because it’s more sustainable? Even if it means ceasing to buy another brand you currently prefer?
? When buying foods, beverages and other consumer products, does greener packaging factor into your purchase decision?
? If you don’t currently, would you purchase products in more sustainable packaging if manufacturers communicated about it better? Where would you prefer to learn about green options?on the packaging itself? On company branded web sites? In store? All of the above?
I’d love to hear from you.

To show it means it when it says it is on your side, Nationwide is launching an integrated campaign featuring “true stories” from “real employees.” Here are some key excerpts from the company’s press release announcing the campaign:
“?said Steven Schreibman, VP advertising and brand management: ?We’re focused on enhancing the customer experience by reemphasizing — and demonstrating — what we mean when we say: Nationwide is On Your Side.’ ”
“?campaign will build on brand awareness to differentiate Nationwide from competitors by highlighting?outstanding personalized experience.”
“Through these testimonies, the campaign shows the ends to which Nationwide will go to serve its customers.”
Nationwide used Academy Award winning director Errol Morris to film a reported 100 employees. Six or so were picked for airing on TV and Web. You can see at least three of them here.
After reading Nationwide’s press release and a few related trade articles, I was perplexed. After viewing the videos online, I was unimpressed. All in all, I’m left thinking Nationwide missed the mark on this one, especially given the high price tag of production (did I mention Errol Morris?).
Employee Testimonials?
Whatever happened to customer centricity? I understand the desire for authenticity, but in my mind customer testimonials would have taken authenticity to a whole ?nother level.
Competitive Opportunity?
Geico’s parody of customer testimonials (Joan Rivers, James Lipton, et al.) was one punch line gone on way too long, and left the field wide open for Nationwide to show its true brand stripes.
Effective Testimonials?
The three employee bits I viewed on the Web all started with a reminder of why we hate insurance companies in the first place – not a great idea for a set-up. The first woman struggles to describe what she does (“insurance stuff”). The second woman talks about Nationwide’s accident forgiveness feature?which, since everyone gets it, is neither “personalized” nor “service” (discuss). And the male employee segues from a boxing metaphor to “hope I never see you again.” If this is what service means to the insurance industry, then you might do better talking about some other topic.
In the end, I didn’t see competitive differentiation, a compelling benefit to me, a sense of what the service experience would be like, and I sure didn’t have my heart tugged out of my chest. Which you should at least do with any testimonial if you’re going to skip the first three items.

What do you think?
1) Should Nationwide have gone with customer testimonials instead of (or in addition to) the employee stories?
2) If you think the employee angle was OK, do you think the testimonials are effective in accomplishing Nationwide’s stated goals? How might they be improved?
* * * * *
Kevin Horne is an independent marketing strategist based in New York City, working with agency and digital partners on branding, communications, and relationship strategies. You can read his now-defunct blog at http://lairigmarketing.typepad.com, or wait for the launch of his new site www.lairigmarketing.com, which he promises will launch “any day now.”

Earlier in the year I wrote an article where I detailed a hypothetical situation of two candidates vying for a marketing position. One candidate decided to take a brain booster drug to help him interview better, while the other candidate considered making the same choice?just to stay competitive.
And while reader responses varied to this particular dilemma, a new commentary in the December 2008 issue of Nature suggests brain boosters such as Ritalin, Adderall, or Provigil are a perfectly acceptable method of improving mental performance.
The writers of the article, which include a group of psychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists say, “Cognitive enhancement, unlike enhancement for sport competitions could lead to substantive improvements in the world.”
In a testimonial for the use of brain boosters taken from the article, Henry Greely of Stanford Law School in California, and Barbara Sahakian, a psychiatry professor from the University of Cambridge in Britain said, “We should welcome new methods of improving our brain function.”
Do we really need cognitive enhancements to improve brain functions?
The human brain is an amazing organ, loaded with billions of neurons that process an amazing amount of information?according to one source, “20 million billion calculations per second.” And while our brains arguably have a fixed capacity, it seems that in a quest “to get ahead” there are many who feel the need to take brain drugs to push their brains to perform even better.
An article in Technology Review makes mention of another Nature survey of 1,400 people across 60 countries. A stunning twenty percent of respondents mentioned that they had taken brain boosting drugs to increase mental performance!
And according to the article, nearly 7% of students in U.S. universities have used prescription stimulants, and on some campuses, as many as a quarter of students have used the drugs for non-therapeutic purposes. These are students who will eventually be coming into the workplace. If they are taking cognitive enhancements to get ahead now, are we fooling ourselves that they will stop once they enter the workforce?
Let’s be honest. These are challenging economic times. Those who are employed are feeling the pressure to perform even stronger, and those who are unemployed may be competing with candidates who are doing all they can to land an open position.
Business executives of all stripes will be confronted with tough choices?and one of those choices could be whether to use cognitive enhancing drugs to maintain or increase performance.
The pressure is real. How will you respond?
Questions for DailyFix readers:
? Should healthy adults have access to cognitive enhancing drugs?
? The scientists in the Nature article argue that cognitive enhancing drugs are just a tool to improve performance, much like using the internet, maintaining good health habits, or getting a better education. Do you agree?
? Do you think there will be more pressure to take cognitive enhancements during these challenging economic conditions?
? Should employers have a policy regarding employee use of “brain boosters”? Is this a “don’t ask, don’t tell” situation, or should companies outright ban such stimulants in the workplace?